This is "Onbekommerd"!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Tourists having their 'boat fix'

We had had not been 'away' for some time (except of course for walks to and from Richmond etc), so we decided we needed an 'outing'. Also, we have been away from Onbekommerd for over 4 weeks now, so we also needed a 'boat fix'. The result was a boat trip on the river Thames!We took a train (underground) to Westminster and from there a boat trip all the way upstream to Hampton Court. You start right next to the Palace of Westminster (better known as the Houses of  Parliament), go through West London, past the 'suburbs', all along the Tidal Thames. This 'Tidal' is no sinecure: the tidal difference can be as much as 5 to 6 metres! Of course the tides also cause quite a current and as we were travelling on the ebbing tide, we went against it. After almost 2 hours the boat got to Kew pier, which we have seen from the shore. Then comes Richmond lock, which is interesting because it is not a 'real' lock as we know it. At Richmond, there is a weir, which is dropped into the river from 2 hours after high tide until 2 hours before the next high tide. It then sort of 'traps' the water upstream, preventing the level in the river from dropping too much. For the 4 hours around high tide, the weir is lifted up (under the footbridge which spans the river at that point) and the water can flow upstream for 2 hours and then downstream for 2 hours until the weir is lowered again. When the weir is up, boats can easily pass under the bridge, but when the weir is down, boats need to use the lock which is next to the weir.
After the locking procedure our boat soon arrived at the Richmond pier, which we know very well from the shore. Then it moved further up, to the Teddington lock, which is a 'normal' lock and above there the river is no longer tidal. It is most interesting to see how the river changes from Westminster (tidal with lots of traffic) to Hampton Court, which is the palace built by Henry VIII, about 4 miles upstream from Teddington (a quiet river with almost only pleasure craft).
From Hampton Court we took a bus back to Richmond, did the shopping at Sainsbury's and got back home. Below are some pictures:


People call this 'Big Ben'. Not quite correct: 'Big Ben' is the name of the biggest of the bells which hangs behind the clock face!


Palace of Westminster (aka 'Houses of Parliament')


There are all sorts of interesting buildings on the way. Tis church is very popular for weddings due to its location. See how low the tide is: the barge in front of the church is far up the bank!


Hammersmith bridge is quite beautiful!


The 'London Apprentice' pub. On the quayside in front of the pub, one can see what the water level at high tide is!


Arriving at Richmond lock


The White Cross at Richmond where we celebrated Sean's birthday with a pub lunch a few weeks ago.


Inside Teddington lock


Whereas on the tidal part of the Thames you see quite a few rowers, upstream sailing is more popular. Here a sailing school near Kingston.



The end of the trip. The gates of Hampton Court as seen from the water,

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Brother Bees

Whilst we are in London, Greg and his business partner Mick are extremely busy getting their honey venture off the ground in Cape Town. Initially, they were only going to keep bees and harvest and sell the honey, but in the meantime they are also importing honey and have just ordered their first containers. Like everything Greg does, it is done properly and in this case on rather a grand scale!
As far as the local production is concerned, they have just set up the first hives in the canola fields (that is the first flower to blossom in the spring) and their 10's of thousands of 'employees' are hopefully hard at work. Its quite an operation to take hundreds of hives to a field and then a few weeks later harvest the honey (remove the combs, centrifuge them to remove the honey and whatever other steps there are like settling and bottling) and then moving all these hives to a different location as the flowers there blossom at a different time.
They got their first bit of honey a week ago, very little as the bees had just been positioned in the fields. The following three pictures show what it looks like:




The truck with hives arrives at the farm


The hives at the Canola field



The first harvest!


We'll keep you updated on this business too!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

All quiet in London

As I warned a while ago, when there is not a lot to report, the blog will be a bit quiet, so here for the first time in two weeks a bit of an update.
We have had some questions about how we are, questions obviously connected to the rioting. Well, Sean and I are both fine, Lyn is still in Cape Town, she comes back tomorrow.
As far as the riots are concerned, of course this is and was bad news. To have the worst unrest here in 30+ years is quite someting and theTV pictures that were sent all over the world show it all. Having said that, one of course needs to understand that this is not the picture of London as it typically was over the last week. There are a few major differences between what has been happening here and similar behavior we see in South Africa, especially in the 'strike season'. Firstly, an enormous amount of people (over 1000) have been caught, arrested and already have been appeared in court and have been sentenced. With CCTV cameras everywhere in London, it is relatively simple to identify people and police are still going into homes and picking up people that were involved, even if they were not actually arrested on the day in question. Sentences as much as 6 months jail have already been handed down for looting shops. In South Africa, I am sure the nett effect would be that only people who actually killed someone would maybe be picked up (and probably never sentenced as the file would have been lost). Secondly, the day after the riots, the communities themselves started to clear things up, including inside looted shops etc. No waiting until the council comes and removes the broken glass, no moaning that 'they' are not doing anything, just get to work and make it right again. These people are proud of their areas, however humble the may be!  Also, individual shopkeepers are being assisted by their customers and communities: An 85 year old (!) barber whose shop was destroyed was given 20000 Pounds because his customers put an appeal on a website. He in turn says that that is way more than he needs and will use it to help others in the street who have also been hit.
Of course the fact remains that there were serious riots and that's bad. It is interesting to see the difference in opinion on what the cause was, and also interesting that very few people think it was politically motivated (i.e. not caused by unhappiness about the spending cuts that have been announced by government). The most popular opinion is that it is pure greed and criminality. That is supported by the fact that most of the shops looted were cellphone, TV etc and expensive sports gear shops. No food and drink, so it was not out of NEED, just out of WANT. The reason for that is more difficult to explain, but it will most likely have someting to do with the ever increasing entitlement culture that has been started with 'free everything'. Thats as far as I'll go.
Of couse the police response was very inadeqate, probably partially caused by an incident last March (I think), where during the G20 protests a demonstartor was pushed by a policeman, fell and died. I have seen the footage of that (remember the CCTV everywhere) and the push was (in my view) definitely not 'over the top' but the policeman is now being taken to court, which has made his collegues a lot more careful in how they handle protests. The Prime Minister has now told the police that he will support more robust policing and has also not ruled our the use of water cannon and suchlike so it would appear that there will be more effective policing in future.
In the meantime, all is quiet now. Sean and I walked through Streatham in South London (an area where there were no riots as such but a few shops were broken in) and came via the Brixton tube station,next to which a (phone) shop was looted and set alight last week and we did not feel unsafe at all. There was a bit more police presence than usual but not all that much either.

On a lighter note, I see that I am now so famous (dont ask me why) that they have started calling streets after me. See this picture!



Last week was Sean's birthday and we had a pub lunch at the river here in Richmond. I did not take a camera, so unfortunately there are no pictures but it was very nice. He is going to work in a suit (but no longer a tie) every day and really looks the part.

Lyn is back tomorrow, after 16 day away. I dont think we have been apart for that long since we married, so I cant wait for her to be here again!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

No driving for 4 months!

I just realised that today it is 4 months ago that I last drove a car! Lyn is in Cape Town and is driving, so she did not make this mark by a few days, but I did.
We were on 6 'planes, in 8 cars (but not driving them, just as passengers), 11 buses and a lot of trains, both above and below ground. We have done a lot of cycling and even more walking (I walked 3 hours yesterday) and of course travelled 1465 KM by boat.
With the good public transport where we are and have been, plus the fact that the shops here in Richmond are between 10 and 20 minutes walk, it is easy not to drive and is healthy too, I have lost about 3 or 4 KGs and feel very fit.
I guess it will be more than another 4 months at least before I drive again, we'll be back in Cape Town for Christmas holidays on 19 December! But maybe walking is not so much fun when winter starts. Its 27C right now, so no worries.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Het Wad

I have been referring to ‘het Wad’ several times during the Onbekommerd trip, without ever explaining properly what this ‘Wad’ actually is. So lets have an attempt:



Between the Northern coast of the Dutch and NW German mainland and the string of islands to the North of that coast lies a unique ecological system. The Dutch call this the “Waddenzee”, the Germans the “Wattenmeer”. It is a mainly shallow area, which is formed and dominated by the tides, the 6 hourly rise and fall of the sea level (caused by the gravitational influence of sun and moon on the earth’s sea water). Generally it is so shallow that it dries up during low tide and floods again as the water returns. In order to carry the water into and out of this area, there are many channels, big and small. The bigger ones, which mainly lie in between the islands, can be up to 10 or even 20m deep, they split into branches which are smaller and smaller and the smallest ones loose all water at low tide, they ‘fall dry’. Of course the areas between the channels also fall dry, sometimes they are 2 or more m above the water level at low tide. On these shallows, at low tide, birds find millions of tiny sea creatures to feast on. Also, seals lie and ‘sunbathe’ on the shallows for a ‘rest’. The coming and going of all there forms of sea life during the tidal cycle is absolutely fascinating and a unique ecological ‘happening’!

For boats, this area is at the same time a challenging and a fascinating environment. Challenging because you need to find a way through the maze of little channels to get from one point to another without either ‘getting lost’ or running aground unplanned. Fascinating because you can time your passage in a such a way that you have the privilege to witness the birds, the seals and what goes on on the shallows. In addition, one can anchor or even let the boat run dry during low tide, sit in the midst of this spectacle and float off again when the next high tide arrives (we have not done this yet, but it will come!).

Both the Dutch and German areas of ‘het Wad’ are nature reserves and there are strict rules on where you can go with your boat, where you can anchor and where you can let it run dry. As a result of this protection, the seal and bird population have increased enormously: as an example, the seal population in one particular area has increased from 200 to 6000 in the last 10 years. No species are threatened in this area anymore. There is therefore no need to tighten up on the rules and areas, although the ever increasing burocracy keeps on threatening to do just that. The people using the Wad have a ‘code of conduct’, which they strictly adhere to and which ensures that birds and seals are not disturbed during their foraging and resting times at low tide.

Although pictures cannot do justice to this wonderful and fascinating area, here are a few, to show some of the ‘principles’:



These first two pictues show the same channel at high- and at low tide. Notice the little (beech) trees which show where the channel is. Very important to stick close to them!



Two exapmples of the seals and birds you see on the shallows. Sometimes the channel runs 10m from these spots!



"Droogvallen" Litt: 'falling dry': Grounding the boat on purpose before low tide so that it floats off again when the water returns. If you do this at high tide, you may wait a long time before you can leave again as not all tides are equally high!



Sightseeing with Sean

It was a nice day yesterday and Sean and I went out to see a bit more of London. We met at the Tower Hill tube station and walked around the Tower of London and under the Tower Bridge (that is the bridge which is famous from the 'typical London picture', it is NOT as so many people think called 'London bridge', that one is furher up the Thames. We had coffee at St Katharines dock, the main marina for London. It is closed off from the river by a lock which can only operate around high tide. When we were there, it was low tideand the lock was actually dry!
Then with the Docklands Light Railway (remote control, no drivers!) to Greenwich where we went to see the observatory and of course took pictures of the zero meridian. As all tourists, we took pics standing with one foot in the Eastern and one foot in the Western hemisphere:


That's zero dergees longtitude between Sean's feet

The clock behind Sean shows 362 days, 7 hours, 51 minutes and 49 seconds to the opening of the 2012 Olympics.

Around Tower Hill, the test Triathlon for the Olympics was on the go. With last week exactly one year before the games, there are 'trial events' on everywhere, from the Olympic test sailing regatta in Weymouth to the Road cycle race here in Richmond!

We ended up at Marks and Spencer in Oxford street as Sean needs more 'workwear'. Apart from 2 ties, we were not too successful.

We both now seem to look like locals as there are people asking us for directions. Only quite rarely can we help.....